Barbara Pym - please explain the attraction!

[kitnkaboodle]

I've just returned from a half term holiday where I staggered my way through TWO Barbara Pyms. Thought that I should acquaint myself with her as she seems to be held in such high esteem and Virago have seen fit to deck out her books in new chick-lit-style covers . Also thought that it would be entertaining, quirky, witty, light holiday reading.

Instead .... what tedious, depressing drivel. I 'get' that she is supposed to document the mundane and the trivial, but not a sodding thing happened in either book apart from spinsters yearning after unavailable men (usually clergy) and endless dreary meals and teas and rhapsodising about the church.

Jane Austen? Not

I missed this thread when it began and have just noticed it’s been added to recently. It’s funny, isn’t it - I used to feel exactly like OP once, tried reading a few Pyms and just couldn’t get it.

Now, a few many years later, I'm completely in love with her writing. And that’s for all the things OP finds lacking - joy, spark, courage. She’s funny, perceptive, poignant and all manner of other good things, in my view. But we can’t all like the same authors

thecatfromjapan that is a great analysis of why BP works for many of us 👏👏

Yes, Terpsichore. I love “spinster fiction”. [looks smugly at a bookcase groaning with bArbara Pyms, Miss Reads, and all the gang specialising in sideways look at “dreary stuff”]

If I'm a fan of Bruckner and Pymm, who else's misery should I be wallowing in, IrmaFayLear?

May I point you in the direction of Persephone Books? It's a small independent publishing house specialising in (mostly) forgotten female authors of (mostly) pre-1950s. You can examine their wares online.

Although 90% of their authors are women, my favourite books are by RC Sherriff. He does dreary, middle-class humdrum existence beautifully !

Peresphone Books is new to me so looking forward to having a good old rummage of their website, possibly accompanied with a cup of tea and a crumpet.

Thank you.

I finished No Fond Return of Love today- I really enjoyed the style of writing and I liked the characters. I'll definitely buy some more of her books.

Get Excellent Women next

I read these 30 years ago, and shall have to re-read them. I liked them then, but the years between may reveal even more that I missed.